A tale of roses and shit
by Lucystrn
Summary: Dramione one shot.


"I've learned in love and death we don't decide.

And if only you could see yourself in my eyes, you'd see you shine, you shine."

Dermot Kennedy, Lost.

They say that with age comes wisdom - or whatever self-gratifying and admirable quality.

What a load of codswallop.

I am 72, and all I've learned so far is that life is random.

A gigantic bowl of swirling shit with a few lost roses bathing in it.

Most of what you grasp is shit. Sometimes you get a rose, but it's been swirling in endless shit for so long that it doesn't remotely smell good any more.

There is no choice. We don't get to decide.

What wisdom can one get out of that?

No choice.

Upbringing, origins, education, environment, and more painfully, love and death.

All random.

We don't have free will but for the sweet illusion of it when we chose what to put in our cup of tea. And even that depends on our income.

Which depends on our education, upbringing sometimes, our environment often.

What can one do but walk his way through all that completely clueless?

So, it is quite expectedly when you get a full view of what my life was like all those years, or so to speak the constant shite picking from the bowl, that I ended up here, alone and with a taste close to bitterness in my mouth, at the supposedly wise age of 72.

Malfoy Manor is the same as my mother left it. She's fervently redecorated and refurbished every nook and cranny of the place after the war, as though a lighter shade of puke-cream colour could erase decades of atrocity and murders.

She did a good job.

The memories still linger everywhere despite her best efforts, though.

After all this time, Malfoy Manor remains the same Gothic mansion it was when I was born.

Humid, cold, but bright with a light that isn't as white as it ought to be.

Needless to say that this environment is not the best for my old joints.

I accommodate anyway.

I have nowhere else to go.

Or more, I am too old and tired to attempt and find another place, that I will end up not liking a bit anyway.

Whatever the past and its history, Malfoy Manor is where Malfoys end their days.

It was only logical that I came back here.

I left the place, to my mother's disarray, for the only other woman in the world that ever meant anything to me.

My sweet, sweet Astoria.

The only woman in the world who was able to make me question everything I was, and everything I did, to scare the hell out of me, and to hold my heart and soul in the palms of her fragile hands at the same time.

She rocked me off my feet the moment I laid eyes on her.

I didn't choose. Oh, I didn't.

My first rose.

I fell. Hard.

Salazar how I love her. How I loved her.

She passed away just after our Scorpius turned twelve.

Twelve blasted roses.

Scorpius is the greatest gift I could have been offered. As undeserving as I was.

She gave it to me.

How she loved him. How I love him.

It was too good a rose.

I knew the day he was born that I only had a few roses left. That I couldn't keep picking them.

They kept coming but were more and more withered as time went by.

Astoria was sick.

Scorpius, miserable.

I, it doesn't matter.

I have no rose left to pick.

Scorpius deserves all the roses life has to offer, and more. He tasted enough of my lack thereof in his childhood.

He is now 46, happily married, and raising two adopted children.

He comes by often, with his own little roses.

And his husband.

I have long ago learnt to let go.

I know where to catch petals where I could only see shit before.

I am okay with it so long as my son, that half of my sweet, sweet Astoria, lives on his own rosed terms.

He is happy.

I, am for him.

Especially since he probably has the most selfless husband. The man has no roses of his own that he doesn't share with my Scorpius.

See, the kid has had his own share of paternal shite and has learnt, just as fast as my Scorpius, in far less time than it took me, that one is not their father.

That a name, whether it be Potter or Malfoy, doesn't determine what is in your bowl.

I repeatedly told them both that a father ought to share their roses with their son, so long as he has any. But that it isn't the son's duty, it is never the son's duty, to try and share his with his father.

A father's shit, a man's shit, ought to belong to him, and only him.

We have no control over important things, but a father ought to spare his son in whatever possible way he can.

Scorpius understands my withdrawal if he is slightly pained with it. Which is why the Manor's door is open for him and his roses anytime he sees fit.

So he can grasp the remaining withering petals that linger along with memories in the Manor.

He never saw any of the shit that I saw happening here.

There are no roses left, no, but a few petals still lay in my mother's flower gardens, in the fine cooking, the grass and the pond where his children sometimes play.

They'll make their own, I know.

Let them regrow roses in this place once my shit is dead and gone with me.

So, I wander the halls, waiting for the end, the burial of an old bowl still full of shit, haunting memories flashing under my eyes every corner I turn.

I have long ago stopped trying to push the flashing shit away.

The only positive, or more not-so-negative thing about those never fading memories the Manor provides, is that they don't hold flashes of my sweet, sweet Astoria.

She passed in our cottage.

Which I couldn't bear to live in but still did for it was what Scorpius wanted. His own memory rose.

He owns it now. Only goes there on holidays though.

I have returned to the Manor as soon as he left the place. I have watched over my dying mother here.

I still take the Manor's shit over Astoria's death.

I thought before that it was a choice to come back here, but it wasn't. I would have become mad there.

I did a little.

The process of sanity loss is slower here because there have been fewer roses here.

Today, the wander is a bit more complicated because my joints make me suffer. It's raining outside.

No amount of magic cures oldness.

I have to stop in the flower parlour and my mother's frail but beautiful and mesmerising silhouette flashes, bent over a pot, her delicate hands wrapped in tight dragon hide gloves. She smiles at me.

Another rose that is long gone.

See, the thing is, when rose and not shit, the memories are still leaving a bittersweet taste in my mouth, and a profound regret always settles in my guts.

I still sit and call an elf for tea.

It brings me the Prophet with it.

Ronald Weasley passed away in a broom accident.

At 72.

Once a fool, always a fool.

Life is full of shit enough that trying to grasp some more on purpose is the very essence of being moronic.

Say my son had a crush on his daughter in his early Hogwarts years – before he realised he rather preferred the stick to the duster that is.

Better Potter than Weasley.

Well, no, why not have a combination of both? Albus Severus Potter.

Married to my son.

Right. I have long ago learnt to let go.

Find petals in the endless torrent of shit that is the metaphor for my life.

So, Ronald Weasley is dead.

Two children, about two and a half Quidditch teams of nephews and nieces, grandchildren still in nappies, a Minister wife, a hero surrogate brother – like the man doesn't have enough, well, didn't – all are getting their load of shit right now.

Random, I told you.

No amount of virtue matters.

Potter and Granger have suffered a fair load of their own already, they certainly don't need to lose their best friend or husband because the man couldn't process the simple fact that, past a certain age, Gryffindor recklessness or not, there are things your body doesn't allow you to do.

Last time he fell from the roof, and his wife caught him at the very last second. The shot has made the front page and, not the brightest, neither the humblest, he's done it again.

I have to recognise to Hermione Granger-Weasley that her patience defies the humanly possible.

Well, Hermione Granger now. Again.

Damn.

Ronald Weasley is dead.

It strangely feels like losing a pet fish or something you don't grow attached to. It's not really painful, more dull, but as it's always been there, the absence makes itself known.

Something is missing.

Well, I guess I'll still be the least affected of all.

My Scorpius' husband was his nephew.

Weasley was my grandchildren's great uncle.

My son will suffer this too, won't he?

I ought to call him.

By the time I bring my old joints to the drawing-room that holds the only fireplace connected to the floo network, my son's stern and pale face is already waiting for me in the earth.

The green flames lick his patient face.

"You've read?" He asks.

"I have." I nod and feel I need to add something. "I'm sorry, son. How is Albus?"

"Holding on." He frowns. Words for crying I guess. "Worried about his family." Crying it is.

"Granger will manage." Goes out of my mouth without my consent. The extent of my prejudice about her, I guess, it was her husband. My son's frown is invisible to anyone else but me. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps this is what will break her placid and cold exterior. "How are Potter and the kids?"

"Devastated." He sighs. "They were there." Salazar.

"How …" I start and don't need to finish.

"He decided to show Harry of all people that he could still beat the kids. He didn't take into account that a starfish and stick move under the rain is slippery."

Scorpius is smart. A right mix of his sweet, sweet mother and I.

"Foolish," I say.

"Deadly," he ads. His opinion, reflecting mine, stays unsaid. With me, he doesn't need to. "The funeral is tomorrow. Closed. You are to come as well."

No press. No guests but family then. Although I do not count as such. More as support for my son, I guess.

"Of course." I nod. My son doesn't go. "Is there anything else?" I ask, knowing there is. If he takes a little time to answer, it only means he'd rather not ask.

"Could you … I know it's a lot to ask but Albus … Could you watch the kids? Ginny and Hermione …"

"Send them in." I cut his painful explanation. My son is affected by all this. "I'll bring them with me tomorrow. Take care of your family."

"Our family dad." He corrects, but I sense the start of an out-of-place smile at my acceptance to take care of his children. His insistence that I am part of that family is a concept I will forever struggle to grasp.

"Right." I prefer not to argue over it now. As I said, I have long ago learnt to let go.

Only now, does he end the call.

Taking care of my son's roses is a duty I always avoided, lest I pass on to them some of my 'shitiness', but I take the role with most care when necessary.

Now, is such a time.

They are entertained, fed, perfectly dressed and informed about the rules when we arrive at the funeral.

My son has taught them well about respecting their elders.

I don't exactly know what to think of it.

I guess my most serious and strict appearance has only helped matters as well.

Boy and girl wear black fine robes and polished shoes that I've had delivered even before Scorpius dropped them by.

They walk, flanking my sides, small rosed hands in both mine. The girl carries flowers I chose, the boy, an envelope.

A bit formal, but I can't possibly have gone for the brain the git would have been in dire need of. He is dead, it would have been too late a call.

Scorpius comes to me the instant we enter, and I am left with flowers and envelope to deposit with the other numerous things people saw fit for such an occasion but really are just frivolous ornaments in the face of death.

The check is useless to Granger but perhaps for the things she might not feel like handling. If that ever exists in her lexicon.

I am most definitely not prepared for what I see next.

Oh, I expected some of it but … saying that Potter and his wife are devastated is putting it rather mildly.

The profusion of tears and noise is outstanding.

Still, it's not what surprises me most.

What does is Granger.

I expected crying, the loss of her calm and strict composure, to a certain extent. A few struggled words, a tissue. They've been together for ever.

I, myself, was a crying and shattered – although silent for Scorpius – mess when my sweet, sweet Astoria passed away.

I did most of the depraved ugly crying in private.

I expected Granger would do the same.

Certainly not what I see.

Hermione Granger, is not here any more.

Her slightly aged face I've grown used to, her slender figure for her years, her posture, are blank. She doesn't say a word the whole thing.

I only see her eyes when to approach the casket after the service. There is nothing left in them.

I am used now, to the bright and sparkling brown that holds all her irritating determination and self-righteousness. So many years of despising it.

I am lying, I haven't despised it so much as just been petulantly amused with it in years.

It's gone, though.

When her children take both her arms, she doesn't move.

I have another flash then, just before I reach her, as I shake hands with a still crying Potter.

Hermione Granger, slapping me.

That girl is gone, and the shock must have slipped on my face for Potter's worried glance goes the same way as mine.

We share something then, for the first time since our respective, and married, children have decided to travel time and risk our world.

A look.

A lot passes through us then.

Understanding, worry, fear.

Potter makes to let go of his wife to go to her but, out of some feeling I haven't experienced since my sweet, sweet Astoria has been told she was dying, I lift my palm to stop him and walk to her myself.

It is worry.

How, why, is not relevant nor important.

If Hermione Granger is falling apart, there are good chances that all bowls will never contain roses again. Thus is the improbability of Hermione Granger giving up.

I am almost frantic as the thought comes.

She can't give up.

She is the auntie my Scorpius and his Albus call day and night to help with their roses, she is the pillar to the Weasley-Potter family since Molly has passed, she is the Salazar blasted pillar to our society. The Minister.

I reach her and both her crying and worrying children.

Both are trying to grasp her attention, whispering in her ears.

She doesn't move.

"Granger?"

Perhaps it is the use of her given name, that I am the last and only to use, perhaps it is the complete improbability of me doing this, but she looks up.

Two seconds of a gaze that doesn't hold questions and responsibilities, or annoyance as it is often the case when I am concerned, and she takes the arm I am offering and lets me lead her away from the casket.

"You can't drown Granger." I lecture once we are out of earshot. "You have roses to water."

She blinks. Her eyes go back to her children instantly, she doesn't need an explanation. Perhaps her life metaphor resembles mine.

There is blank silence, if she thinks, it doesn't show.

Her arm is still in mine.

Then, she asks, her voice barely a whisper:

"How did you survive it?"

The answer comes to mind without thinking.

Scorpius.

It was the only thing keeping me from drowning. Barely. I had a rose left. I couldn't lose it as well. He is half of my sweet, sweet Astoria's soul. He is my only son. He was so young. He was already seeing what life without roses is. I kept my head out of the water because he deserved to have a father left. If not his sweet, sweet mother.

At least his shity but steady father.

I gave him everything, including my very last petal.

I didn't drown.

For him.

Granger has so many roses left. She is so many people's rose herself.

She can't drown. It takes a minute, but I find what to answer.

"I still had one rose to take care of."

She nods and lowers her face to our joined arms.

She seems to think it, just as I do. How bizarre a gesture, especially between us. Perhaps similar shit makes for strange bedfellows. The term makes me cringe a little, but I can't find another.

We've been waving between simple acquaintances and more for decades now. Since Albus and Scorpius' little time adventure.

Never quite 'friends' in terms that we never sought out each other's company outside of 'very obligatory' family reunions – a family I still have trouble including myself in – or outside of Ministry events, which means once every other year or so since the wedding.

If we've already been past the 'resentment' phase and in the 'let's forget about the past' phase before the kids' adventure, we've grown to be 'friendly' whenever we crossed path ever since.

With Potter and his wife as well. Weasley has always been a struggle, but I pretended well.

My Scorpius being married to Granger's godson has played a part in the 'friendliness' over the years.

But never, ever before, have I made a physical gesture.

Not once in my life have I touched Hermione Granger.

And it took us both to be widowed to come to that type of friendliness.

She blinks, her frowned surprise – the first expression on her face – slipping away.

Tears start to blur her eyes, her cheeks flushing, and the small wrinkles, the smiling lines, at the corner of her mouth quiver.

Somehow, we both tighten our grip. I, because I have no words of comfort to offer, Granger, because she needs comfort anyway and is not offered more.

"I don't think I can survive it."

As I said before, I have long ago learnt to let go, breathe and still find petals in oceans of shit.

This means, most and foremost, that there isn't much that moves or surprises me any more.

This.

This revolts me.

A feeling I have long lost with my sweet, sweet Astoria.

"You will. You have no choice." I am surprised by the condemnation in my voice.

She only frowns her surprise again, the question is in her eyes when she lifts them to meet mine.

I take a breath and lower my tone before I speak.

"If I did, if only for my son, you will. You can't drown when all these people rely on you. It pains me to say, but Weasley would roll in his grave hearing this. Hermione Granger giving up?"

It doesn't make her smile. It makes her watch her feet and cry more.

"It's hard." I concede, but my words are too far from it. "The hardest thing in the world actually," I confess, "and I lived with Voldemort and Nagini."

She whips her tears with a black sleeve.

"But you have support. All these people are here for you, they care about you. I did it with no one Granger, and you're far braver than I am."

"What if I'm tired of being brave?" That cuts the wits out of me. "What if they don't and can't understand because it's all they know me to be?" She ads in a strangle, as if per way of countering any of my previous arguments.

Expectations.

Granger is expected to rebound practically unscathed from this. Of course, she is, she is Hermione Granger.

I, also, have expected her to rebound, no, correction, I knew she'd rebound. I told my son so, without a second thought.

When this happened to me, I was expected to bury myself, and when I didn't, people couldn't care less.

The pressure she lives under is quite different.

Failure against success.

It is, nonetheless, pressure. Expectation.

Her husband, first love, has just passed away and people expect her to take a week off work to cry and mourn with Potter and then to be back to business.

Unfair.

No, random. She doesn't have a choice.

She is tired.

It is a feeling I am very well acquainted with.

"I understand."

Her eyes drift up from her feet to me, and they are red and swollen.

"You're the only one then." Another tear goes free. "Harry he …" relies on her, I finish silently for her. "Ginny is … he was her brother. And my kids I … I haven't got enough left in me for this Malfoy." That makes my insides coil. I remember the feeling she's describing. "It's like you said. I feel like I'm drowning."

If my next words surprise me, it's only for later.

"Then I'll make sure to keep that bushy head out of the water."

Her face screws in a mix of emotion too complex and too quickly for me to comprehend.

"You don't need …" Her words explain it better.

"I've got nothing else to do." I cut, and it's true. She is about to argue, I can see it as she opens her mouth. I decide there's no point at such an age, and under such circumstances, in not being truthful. "I wish someone had done that for me."

She is drowning. The certainty of it is conspicuous in the fact that she doesn't argue more. Instead, tears fill her eyes again and, tightening her grip – somehow comfort I don't mind giving – she whispers: "Thank you."

I choose not to over-think this. If she is down to that point, to accepting my help, things are definitely wrong.

"Let's go back to your little roses." I offer. "They need you as much as you need them now."

She nods, and I bring her back to her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren.

Potter exchanges a look with his wife then, and I am in no position to turn and go, Granger being in the process of letting go of my arm with one last squeeze. There is no avoiding his self-righteous questions then.

He comes to me, and we step slightly aside.

"Did she talk to you?"

I nod, trying to choose my words wisely, with that wisdom I never quite acquired.

"I think she could use someone who understands."

Incredulity is as ugly on Potter as any other feeling is. Exponentially so now that he is so old. Bravery has inevitably worn him off. He looks twenty years older than I do.

One of my last but now utterly useless petals. Good looks.

"You …" He stutters. "You would …"

I don't particularly care for repeating myself. Still, if Potter dislikes the idea – which only now surprises me as well – Granger might just decide that drowning by herself is more appealing than to accept my help. Somehow, I feel like I ought to help.

"I wish I'd had someone who understood when it happened to me."

My sweet, sweet Astoria.

Perhaps Potter has acquired the wisdom that is supposed to come with our shared age because he doesn't argue.

He seems to understand why I offer.

He is no complete fool, after all, and he must have come to the realisation that he doesn't understand what she is going through, thus can not help.

By nodding slowly and then lifting his hand for me to shake, he proves he accepts handing the role over to me.

However unlikely the situation is.

"Thank you, Malfoy."

I nod as well, shaking his hand briefly. This conversation needs to end before his sudden and odd- feeling thankfulness starts burning my ears.

"I will see to my son now."

"Of course."

I make to go away and add, almost as an after-thought: "My condolences Potter."

He merely acknowledges the formality with a jerk of his head as I walk away.

It is the strangest and yet strongest emotional display I've participated in – quite actively at that – in many years.

I don't know what to think of it as I reach my son.

Scorpius is holding hands with Albus, his little girl on one of his hips.

Albus looks about as distraught as his father.

"I can keep them a little longer if you wish." The offer is directed more to Albus than Scorpius. My son, although visibly pained, is holding on. I can tell.

Albus gives me a barely-there watery smile: "No, it's fine. I think I need a little cuddle time tonight. Thank you for watching them, Draco." The not-quite-smile is there in gratitude, and it only affects my son's smile so that I am glad.

"You're welcome. Don't hesitate to floo if you need anything."

This time, it is my Scorpius who answers:

"Thanks, Dad. Do you want to come over with us? Everyone's going home and you …"

Are alone and reminded of mum's death is the end of the sentence he doesn't finish.

This is known and well-foraged territory, this conversation.

"No, thank you. You guys can come over on Sunday as usual if you both feel like it. A little sun in the garden will do you all some good." Of course, he expects the answer. He doesn't accept the underlying lie that I prefer to be alone so much as he has stopped fighting against it. As I said before, my son, although pained with it, understands my withdrawal.

"We'll be there." Albus decides in a very Potter way he wouldn't like to be told about.

It is time to go, but I have one thing left to do before I return to my home.

I doubt Granger is going to hold onto my offer. Perhaps I am wrong again, but I can feel this. I can feel that she has passed the point of even caring.

She is drowning.

Her daughter's name is Rose. Coincidence.

As I approach their group though I notice that her eyes are on me. I stay behind.

She has her father's eyes. Azure.

Weasley has always been good at chess, right?

Very good even. I can pay a compliment, the man is dead.

He was a master in strategy disguised under a lanky and quite moronic attitude. He was sensible to purpose.

His daughter ought to be the smartest and wildest thing of all roses.

She lets go of her mother, leaving the blurry-eyed but calm witch to her brother, and comes straight to me.

Check.

"Mr Malfoy." She nods. I decide to go for it with no detour.

"Can you promise me something, kid?" She frowns rather fiercely at the nickname, her glare suddenly reminiscent of her fourteen-year-old mother the day she slapped me. She nods still, holding back her words, and acceptance.

"If you feel like your mother is drowning, call me at this address." I produce a card wandlessly. If she is impressed, it does not show. "I'll pop in for tea," I add, so no misunderstanding lays.

"I will." She gives, her eyes still on the card.

She doesn't thank me and turns around without another glance.

Checkmate.

The Manor is dark when I arrive. My slow, strained footsteps echo in the corridor. I sit with my working father's frown flashing to me in his old study.

I drink in one of his old glasses.

One is not their father.

Astoria, my sweet, sweet Astoria, once told me that the apple has fallen so very far from the tree. I almost laughed. Then, she explained that it was one of life's roses that I could love so much when no one has ever loved me such. Until her. And Scorpius, she added, handing me our sweet one-year-old son.

"I am so proud of being your rose, my sweet, sweet Draco."

I receive the call on Sunday evening, just after dinner. The boys are long gone, after a quiet and grief-gripped afternoon in the gardens.

Albus, the talkative one out of the two taciturn husbands, has said less than usual. Scorpius has asked how I am, only once, resignedly accepting my lying answer quicker than usual.

I am in the library, my own flash researching magical cabinets for the Dark Lord on a lonely holiday break, luring in a corner of the room, when I hear the call.

She is about to give up when I reach the parlour.

Old joints and a humid Manor make for a slow old man.

"Oh. Mr Malfoy."

"Rose," I answer. She looks uncertain. Briefly.

"I … It's late, but you said …"

"I don't believe I have the address," I say. Cutting through the awkwardness and reiterating my offer for help.

She seems more confident again.

"Here."

I land in a bright and colourful living-room. The atmosphere is somehow bleak. Rose seems lost as to what to do, and I understand why when I catch sight of Granger.

She is curled in against the armrest of a worn orange couch, only her feet poking out from under a thin blanket. She seems asleep.

I think she isn't.

"She refused to go to brunch with all of us pretexting a cold today. I found her …"

"Go back to your family," I say, as softly as I can.

She nods and makes to go back to the floo I just exited.

"I see what Albus meant now. My father never really … he was wrong about you."

The answer unfurls naturally.

"I certainly was about him too. There are grudges you can't help, kid."

She nods, ignoring the nickname this time, and leaves.

I find the kitchen quickly. Accio comes in handy when facing foreign cupboards. The tea is precarious, I am not one not to rely on elves. I doubt she'll notice.

I come to sit next to her. She doesn't move.

"Pretending not to see me won't make me vanish." I eventually taunt. It works.

She takes the cup of tea with steady hands, under tired eyes.

"I'm ashamed." She doesn't need to specify. Her daughter had to call me.

"I don't kiss and tell."

She huffs and doesn't quite smile, but in other circumstances, I know she would have.

Nothing else is said until I leave. I only go when she's genuinely fallen asleep next to me. Her curls – although mated in a braid – under my chin.

Rose calls me the next Sunday. A little earlier. I am still eating dinner, which I don't finish. She looks more apologetic. No, it isn't quite the word. If darn was a feeling, it would be that.

Granger doesn't pretend not to hear me. She lets me make tea. She lifts both hands to accept it when I emerge from the kitchen.

Rose calls me one last Sunday after this one. After dinner.

"I … I can't watch her. Hugo comes every other day, but on Sundays with the kids it's …"

"What time would be best?" I ask.

"Five? I have to be home at five."

"No need to call then."

"Thank you, Mr Malfoy." She means it. The relief is visible in her gaze.

"Draco." After all, her generation doesn't call me Mr any more.

"Yes, Draco."

"Now, go take care of your roses," I say, hoping to end the conversation. "I'll be there shortly."

She, just like her mother, doesn't need explaining. She smiles.

"Well, you too."

I prefer not to dwell on that.

So, it becomes a habit. I miss dinner for a few Sundays.

I know Granger won't eat and it can only do well to my elder start of – wine belly – slight swell.

I come, make tea, she nods after a few Sundays, accepts it, then we sit in companionable silence until she falls asleep for the first time in the week probably.

She looks tired.

The fifth Sunday, she says thank you. It is for more than just tea, I know. I answer "Why? It's only tea," and add, "and it's disgusting," after my first sip.

It is.

She huffs, not yet smiling.

The seventh Sunday, she says at her own first sip: "You're right, it's disgusting."

To which I answer: "Beggars can't be choosers." She huffs again, almost smiling. She falls asleep later than any other Sunday this time. She is sleeping better, I guess.

The ninth, she is at the kitchen door, observing, when I turn around, levitating the cups. She answers my pretend questioning – but more relieved – frown with: "No wonder it's disgusting."

I don't waste time to answer: "Well, it'd taste better if you weren't such a poor host and did it yourself." It is pushing my luck, but she huffs as well.

I don't see her face, but I bet the smile is practically there.

She still drinks it.

The tenth, tea is on the coffee table when I arrive. It lasts less than a second, but I see the start of a smile when I take my first sip.

"Passable," I comment.

"Still better than yours." I smiled at that.

I lose count shortly after the seventeenth Sunday. No more than a few words are exchanged, as per custom it seems, but no less significant ones that day.

She speaks first:

"Does the rose metaphor come from your mother's flower garden?"

"Yes, it does."

She nods. "She was very brave."

"A very rare specimen of green rose, yes."

No more is said, but the next Sunday, there is dinner.

From then on, words come more easily. Still little is said, but never empty of meaning. Except, perhaps, the slight attempts I make to trigger a smile.

No one questions the Sunday evenings, I believe Rose responsible for this.

It is an escape from the flashes, as short-lived as lasts a Sunday evening. I think it helps her as much as it helps me.

My sweet, sweet Astoria is never mentioned. Weasley neither.

Until a year has passed.

"How did you do this alone, Draco?" The question almost takes me off guard. The look in her eyes has tamed the surprise though. As I said, little said here has no meaning. The raw honesty doesn't escape my answer, I don't have it in me to lie.

"I'm still doing it."

She takes my hand for the first time before resting her cheek on my shoulder, just as she's done for the past year now.

"I wish I'd met her. It might not have taken me sixty years to see what I see now."

If she refers to me, I can only try to change the course of the conversation.

"Perhaps she was the brightest witch of her age." Though it doesn't contradict her, the words are still strangled as I mention my sweet, sweet Astoria. Without moving, she squeezes my hand as she replies:

"Perhaps." I can hear the smile in her voice.

This Sunday night, I fall asleep as well.

I realise at some point during the second year that she doesn't need the Sunday evenings any more, but she never calls for a stop, and I think, perhaps, I need the petal.

Yes, it's become a petal, a little respite.

So, I don't say a thing and keep coming.

She can laugh again.

The first time is when I call her roast beef, as chewy as a dementor's tongue. She laughs.

It seems to surprise her as much as it relieves me. The relief is shortly replaced with my own laughter, as she tastes it herself.

Burnt meat is putting it mildly.

One Sunday evening, a few days before the third year of Sunday evenings, during tea, she informs me that she wishes to move.

It is the first time she mentions her late husband to me.

"I see him everywhere."

"I had to move as well." I understand.

She seems conflicted all through dinner.

She doesn't speak more, though. So, I guess whatever she has to say must be important. I don't push.

My only petal is turning to dust the more she remains silent.

I don't want to push.

If I do, I can take away from her the illusion of choice she has over this. She doesn't have a choice, feelings are random as well.

Life is random, isn't it? I have no longer been needed here for over a year, but the petal has held.

It is only a matter of time before it fades and I have to plunge my hand back in the bowl of shit again.

She, on the other hand, has many roses, she doesn't need one smelly petal.

She's held on to it until hope has crushed her grief.

Now, she is moving, out and on, and will get to pick in her – I am sure – fuller bowl. She's had more shit than permitted, all I hope is for her to start picking roses again.

I'll do anything if it helps.

From afar, though, it seems.

After dinner, we take our seats on the couch with another cup of tea, as per custom.

I have a lump in my throat. It is probably the last Sunday evening. I will return to my shit later, for as long as it takes me to die.

She doesn't fall asleep. I can't, don't want to ask.

But she doesn't rest her cheek on my shoulder, she doesn't take my hand either.

I can't drink my tea. She doesn't speak.

She hasn't lied before, she is tired of being brave.

Perhaps she is afraid of hurting my feelings. Perhaps …

The tea is cold when I have gathered all that is left in me to speak the words. I have decided, after three years of petal helping, that if I wish she ever finds new roses, I can give her all I have to help her let go of this. To move on.

I have no roses left to pick anyway. Nothing to lose.

"I understand Granger. You still have roses to pick, it's all I wish for you."

She doesn't speak, and I can't look at her. The amber and cold tea stares back at me. It trembles as she keeps silent, small ripples appearing on the surface.

Until her hand reaches my wrist and she lowers it to the coffee table.

"I think …" She takes a deep breath, and I brace myself. "I think I already picked it."

I finally look at her. Her eyes shine as it hurts her to be brave. "I was wondering if you'd ever let yourself pick one again."

That is when I understand. Oh with age, really comes wisdom.

"But it takes bravery to find one."

"Would you be brave for me, Draco?" There is hope in her eyes, crashing grief down.

Only then do I realise that this hope is for me.

"I'm so tired of being brave." She says.

"I've got nothing to offer." She must know this now. She sighs.

"I have plenty of roses to share." She says. "Be brave Draco." She pleads now. It is what she wants.

I don't have the strength to be brave more than once. I am tired as well. But for her, I can try.

"Only if you wish to be my last one."

She smiles, a real, true smile, the smile of a rose blooming.

"I already am." And she leans on my shoulder.

I take her hand in mine.

Life is random.

You don't have a choice.

All you have is a bowl full of shit and a few lost roses you seem never to pick.

But, if you are brave enough, instead of continually putting your hand in the bowl for more shit, you find the strength to nurture the very last withering petal you picked, until it blooms, and becomes a rose once again.

**A/N:** Happy Crimbo loves!


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